


A Novel Experience

by TheFisherKitty



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Enthusiastic Consent, Episode: s01e03 The Naked Now, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship/Love, Light Angst, Requited Unrequited Love, Sexual Humor, romance novels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 05:09:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18542920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFisherKitty/pseuds/TheFisherKitty
Summary: “Data,” Tasha said gently, “it isn’t that kind of book.”Data looked disconcerted, as though uncertain whether a joke was being played at his expense, a scenario he had unfortunately encountered more than once in his lifetime to date.“Is this not a depiction of an aquatic bivalve on the cover?” he asked, brow furrowed. “There are even some droplets of water on the mollusk itself, suggesting that it was immersed in water prior to the moment of its depiction.”“Do you want to tell him, or should I?” Commander Riker asked.---A follow-up to The Naked NowIn which Data finds a romance novel and seeks Tasha's counsel, and in which I put a band-aid on all the feels I've had for this pairing from when it originally aired until this very day.





	A Novel Experience

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by an incident that happened to me today, in which I had ordered two Star Trek novels and one of them was very much not the right book, such that I received one Star Trek novel with a very confused looking Data on the cover, and a romance novel with a horrifying d-bag of a protagonist which did, in fact, bear the aforementioned image of a moistly dripping, pearl-laden oyster. The titles used are fictional as far as I know.
> 
> This is the good-feeling, happy sex Tasha truly deserved. I apologize for nothing.
> 
> Takes place around a few episodes after The Naked Now; tagged to that episode because it's the most relevant to the story.

_Captain’s Log, Stardate 41273.5:_

_Following the evacuation of a Federation science outpost due to catastrophic failure of all life support systems, thankfully with all personnel alive and well, communication with the outpost’s main computer was lost. The Enterprise has been dispatched to conduct necessary repairs to the computer and life support systems so that the science team may regain access to their data and eventually be reinstated to the facility._

_\---_

The air shimmered with a blue-white glow as the away team materialized, casting shadows in the main chamber of the science outpost. Commander William Riker activated a palm light, shining it around the vacant work area.

“Not exactly cozy,” he remarked, his breath turning frosty in the stale air.

“The Enterprise computer was able to pair remotely with the outpost’s main computer, achieving a tenuous link through which basic life support was able to be restored to minimal requirements,” Lieutenant Commander Data supplied from Riker’s left. “However, beyond restoring temperature controls and the correct mixture of breathable air, no higher functions were accessible.”

“It’s still a little chilly in here, but we should be able to address that when we get the computer fully online,” Lieutenant Geordi LaForge added. “It looks like we activated some kind of standby mode through our uplink.”

“Data, Geordi, that’s your top priority, and see what you can do about the lights,” Riker ordered.

“Commander, permission to secure the outpost,” Lieutenant Natasha Yar spoke. “It seems unlikely we’ll find anything, but I’d rather be sure.”

“That seems a wise precaution,” Riker replied. “Permission granted, Lieutenant; you’re with me.”

The first officer and chief of security made their way down the corridor toward the outpost’s living quarters.

Data knelt and pried open the access panel below the main computer interface while Geordi held up a palm light, looking over Data’s shoulder.

“Data, I’m seeing some traces of ionizing radiation here,” Geordi remarked. “It’s nothing too substantial now, but it could be what caused the failure in the first place. It might also explain why the science team lost remote access to the core.”

“Yes, Geordi. I can confirm that there are several disrupted access pathways involved in information retrieval, as well as corruption in the primary life support initialization pathway. We appear to have accessed backup systems only through the remote link.”

“I wonder why the backups failed to kick on when the primaries blew,” Geordi mused.

“We will endeavor to find out,” Data replied unnecessarily, causing Geordi to grin as they set to work.

\---

The lights came up just as Riker and Tasha returned from investigating the crew quarters, the room growing warmer as the atmospheric blowers ramped up to full and quickly dissipated the sour, musty odor that hung in the air.

“That’s more like it,” Riker commented with a pleased grin. “All is as it should be in the crew quarters. I take it you’ve figured out the cause of the issues with the computer and life support?”

“Yes, Commander,” Data replied. “It would seem that a defective conduit overloaded and created a burst of ionizing radiation. The affected conduit was located within the plate shielding designed to protect the core and so the systems sustained damage; however, since the irradiation occurred inside the shielding, the science team was protected from negative biological effects of the radiation itself.”

“Leaving them to escape with their lives from a failing life support system instead,” Riker said. “They had to drop everything right in the middle of what they were doing. This place looks like they could just walk back in at any moment and continue on as though nothing had happened.”

Now that the lights were working, the away team could see that several of the workstations had been left in such a state, tools left out here, a drawer half open there. One workstation even had an actual paper book, most likely replicated, laid open on its pages with its cover up, next to a half-finished cup of tea which had frozen and was just beginning to thaw.

“Curious,” Data remarked, picking up the book. “For what purpose would the science team have needed to replicate a physical copy of a reference book on inducing cultivation of pearls in bivalve marine mollusks when this is not an aquatic research station?”

The other members of the away team looked more closely at the book. The cover, filigreed lettering around an oyster shell containing a pearl, read _The Seed and the Pearl._ Tasha fought a smile and Geordi gave a soft chuckle as Riker grinned broadly.

“Data,” Tasha said gently, “it isn’t that kind of book.”

Data looked disconcerted, as though uncertain whether a joke was being played at his expense, a scenario he had unfortunately encountered more than once in his lifetime to date.

“Is this not a depiction of an aquatic bivalve on the cover?” he asked, brow furrowed. “There are even some droplets of water on the mollusk itself, suggesting that it was immersed in water prior to the moment of its depiction.”

“Do you want to tell him, or should I?” the commander asked.

“Be my guest,” Geordi replied.

“Commander…” Tasha warned.

“Perhaps you should skim through the contents,” Riker suggested, undaunted as his eyes sparkled with mischief.

With a perplexed blink, Data held up the book and began flipping through the pages at a rapid speed only an android could comprehend. At first, his expression of confusion lingered; then, his eyes widened, his jaw gradually falling slack as his eyes darted back and forth with every turn of the page.

“I do not… understand the purpose of this…” Data said hesitantly. “I did not think it customary to find… erotica in a workplace.”

“It’s a romance novel, Data,” Geordi spoke up, deciding to rescue his friend. “You probably wouldn’t catch someone with one during their duty rotation on a starship, but out here, around the same people every day and passing time while data compiles and experiments run their course, it might be a little more casual.”

“Is not the purpose of erotica… sexual gratification?” Data asked.

“Romance novels aren’t that big of a deal, Data,” Tasha said. “For some people… for a lot of women actually, the part that’s exciting isn’t just about a sexual act. It’s also exciting to read about the waiting and the turns of circumstance that lead up to it.”

“Is that type of excitement not typically considered to be inappropriate around others?”

“No, Data. I mean, it _is,_ but that’s not what romance novels are like. It’s more like they make your heart race a little, or they make you feel infatuated with possibilities, not so much as explicit sexual arousal.”

“Not that our Mr. Data knows much about that. I wouldn’t imagine that an android has much in the way of practical experience,” Riker jibed.

“Hey, that’s not nice,” Tasha snapped. “Sir,” she added.

She glanced downward, hiding her sudden blush from Riker’s gaze, though Geordi could see the heat signature on her face with his VISOR. _Now that’s interesting,_ he thought.

“While it is true that my own experience is somewhat… _limited…_ ” Data said, glancing at Tasha before meeting Riker’s gaze once more, “it is not completely nonexistent. Though I am programmed with a broad scope of information regarding human sexuality, it does not include information about… ‘ _romance novels._ ’”

“Well, maybe Tasha can explain them to you, since it sounds like she has plenty of experience with them!” Riker said with a laugh.

“Commander!” Tasha cried, looking embarrassed. “Everybody’s read them once or twice…”

“In any case,” Geordi interrupted, coming to the rescue once more, “Data managed to stabilize the computer core. All that’s left to do is send an engineering team down to replace a few damaged components.”

“Very well,” Riker smirked, tapping his comm badge. “Enterprise, four to beam up.”

\---

Tasha kicked off her boots, plucked her comm badge from her uniform, and tossed it on the nightstand by her bed. She had just come off shift and was looking forward to relaxing. She planned to change into casual clothing in a short while, but for the moment, she sprawled on her bed and simply enjoyed the feeling of her feet being free of her shoes.

And then her door chime sounded.

Tasha opened her eyes and looked up at her ceiling with a sigh, then rolled off her bed.

“If I have to put my boots back on, so help me…” she muttered as she approached the door, then stated more clearly, “Enter!”

The door slid open with a swish, and there stood Data, that expression of doubt gracing his features once more.

“Lieutenant,” he queried. “I wish to speak with you, but I confess, I am uncertain whether you would find the conversation to be welcome.”

“This is about the romance novels,” she stated, and he gave a single short nod. “Come in, then.” She stepped aside, allowing him entry, the door closing behind him.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Data, we’re off duty. You can call me Tasha.”

“As before, I was uncertain… thank you, Tasha.”

They stood in her living area, neither moving, momentarily at a loss. Tasha was reminded vividly of the last time he was here, and she suddenly felt flustered; the memories were slightly muddled by the intoxicating effect she had been under, but not so muddled that she didn’t still know exactly what had occurred. It was how she had allowed such a lapse of self control that truly bothered her, even though she knew that wasn’t rational. Even Data had been affected and he wasn’t even supposed to be able to get drunk…

Data, too, must have been recalling their tryst, for he glanced briefly toward her bedroom, then, just as quickly, shifted his gaze toward her. For a being supposedly incapable of being nervous, he still looked it. _Uncertain,_ she thought to herself; _he wouldn’t call it nerves, he would say he’s uncertain, but it amounts to about the same._

“Data, would you like to-“ she began, at the same moment Data said, “Tasha, I wish to inquire-“

And they both stopped, at a standstill again.

“I was going to offer you a seat,” she said finally. “What were you going to ask?”

“I had intended to ask if I am permitted to reference our previous sexual encounter. Though you insisted that ‘it never happened,’ I have found that a larger than average percentage of my cognitive processes have repeatedly become preoccupied with my memories of the incident for the past several hours. As such, I have concluded that it will likely be relevant to several of the topics that may arise as a result of this conversation.” He hesitated, then added, “As the scope of my practical experience in matters of human sexuality is, as Commander Riker alluded, so limited as to be virtually meaningless-“

“Oh, Data…” she sighed, her expression stricken. She rested her hands on his arms. “It wasn’t meaningless, at least not because you’re inexperienced or because you’re an android. I was embarrassed. I felt ashamed of myself for not having more control. I felt as though I had taken advantage of you.”

“The effects of the polywater chain intoxication precluded such control,” Data said, looking confused. “It is irrational for you to believe I was taken advantage of. Indeed, were it not for our encounter, I would have no practical experience whatsoever in such matters.”

“ _None?_ ” Tasha cried out. “Why? How is that possible? You’ve served in Starfleet for over twenty years! And before that… Well, I don’t know what you were doing before that. But in all that time, you _never…_?”

“That is an accurate assessment, though I can only speculate as to why I received so little interest of a sexual nature from my crewmates. It has often been a struggle for others to perceive me as a _living_ being, much less one capable of or desirable for sexual interaction with other humanoid life forms.”

“Data, that is such… such _bullshit!_ ”

Data paused, momentarily looking alarmed at her outburst, then quirked his head in that way he sometimes did when he was cross-referencing something, and sure enough…

“Ah. Slang, vulgarity; denoting nonsense, deception, exaggeration, unfairness. Rubbish, hogwash, poppycock, hokum, hooey, malarkey, baloney-“

“Nonsense and unfairness in this case, Data,” she interrupted. “It’s wrong of anyone to treat you like you aren’t a living being, when it’s so painfully obvious that you are.”

“I cannot feel pain, and it would seem that it is not so obvious to everyone as it is to you.”

“It pains _me_ that anyone would treat you that way.”

“Tasha,” Data said, and then paused for a moment. “I had previously concluded that there was a possibility that you initiated an encounter with me because I do not have the human capacity for feelings, and am superior to human beings in most aspects of functionality; in essence, that it was my non-human, and possibly non-living, status that may have caused you to select me for the act of sex. However, based on what I have extrapolated from our present conversation, I now wonder if I may have… erred… in that assumption.”

“Oh, Data,” Tasha whispered, her eyes glistening as tears welled. “I chose you because you were _safe._ You’re my friend. You won’t lie to me, and you won’t cross a line if I tell you not to, and if I tell you to stop then you’ll _stop…_ ”

She breathed raggedly for a moment. Her hands had moved to his chest, balled up in tight fists from her frustration. Her chin dropped as she hung her head.

“Those are qualities that make you better than many humans I’ve known, qualities that make me _trust_ , and if I can’t find that in a human man, that certainly doesn’t make you _less,_ at least not in my eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”

He raised a hand, his fingertips tracing the line of her jaw with an impossibly light touch before resting beneath her chin and tipping her head gently up to face him.

“It is a fact that I cannot be hurt,” he spoke softly, “but that does not mean I wish for you to continue to hurt, whether on my behalf or for any other reason. If I knew how to comfort you now, I would do it, and I find myself thinking, somewhat irrationally, that if I knew a way to prevent you from being hurt in the past, I would do that as well.”

Tasha smiled through her tears as she wiped them away.

“It seems you do know how to comfort me.”

Data looked confused again, briefly.

“Ah. I believe I have inadvertently ‘done something right.’”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Data. You ‘did something right’ because it’s your nature to be so good.” Tasha glanced at her small, Starfleet issue couch. “You never sat down.”

“You said only that you were going to offer me a seat. You did not actually make the offer.”

Tasha rolled her eyes in good humor. “Come on, Data, let’s rectify that error.”

She took him by the hand and led him not to the sofa, but through the door to her bedroom alcove, pulling him down to sit with her on the edge of her bed.

“Tasha?” he questioned.

“You wanted to learn about romance novels, right?”

Data nodded sharply, his gaze attentive.

“Tell me, that book you read at the science outpost. What was the man in it like?”

“I found that aspect most confusing,” he admitted. “He was… unpleasant. Rude, boorish, unkind, inconsiderate, overly forceful... In truth, I do not understand how his behavior could be construed as ‘romance.’ In addition, there was an… unsettling amount of emphasis placed on what the book referred to as his ‘ejaculatory prowess.’”

“That’s often the case,” Tasha said. “Romance novels are harmless fantasy, and many people feel a primal sense of arousal in response the fiction of the kind of rough treatment they wouldn’t necessarily put up with in real life – at least, hopefully they wouldn’t. But sometimes people have a way of getting stuck in a situation they can’t get out of, at least, not before something bad happens.”

 _Like her upbringing on Turkana IV_ went unspoken between them.

“I found that I would never wish to behave as he did,” Data said instead.

“I told you, goodness is in your nature.”

“I believe you are referring to my programming,” Data countered.

“I am referring to your nature as a living being,” Tasha said firmly. She held his gaze until he accepted her words with a nod.

“There was another part which I found to be disconcerting. In a scene in which the characters were engaged in intercourse, her vaginal canal was referred to as being ‘molten with the heat of her desire.’ Several conditions would have to be met in order for human flesh to melt, all of which would be undesirable and potentially fatal. The necessary elevation in temperature alone-“

“Hyperbole, Data. Exaggeration.”

“You mean… ‘bullshit’?” Data looked awfully hopeful about whether he had used the term correctly, Tasha thought, for a being supposedly unable to have such feelings.

“Well, yes, in a way. It’s a widely accepted trope of the genre.”

Data stored that fact away with everything else he had gleaned about romance novels so far.

“I don’t want you to get the idea that there’s only one kind of fantasy people want,” Tasha said, turning to her nightstand and pressing a tab to open a drawer. Reaching in, she pulled out a book. “Do you want to see what I like, Data?”

“Yes.”

She handed the book to him. He looked at the cover; it bore the image of a beach, and a couple riding an equine animal, and in elegant script, the title _Silver Shores_ _at Sunset._

“Don’t pay attention to the cover or the title. They’re pretty much always stupid anyway. And the setting doesn’t really matter,” she stammered, a blush gracing her cheeks. “Just… read it. You’ll see the difference.”

Data quickly scanned through the text, as he had done before.

“It is… a curious sensation,” he remarked, his voice slightly breathier than usual. “My sexuality programming is attempting to engage without first correctly overriding my modesty subroutine. I am experiencing a compulsion to be discreet, to… not be seen engaging in this activity. It was the same at the outpost, but magnified with the additional presence of Geordi and Commander Riker.”

“You mean you’re feeling furtive?” Tasha laughed softly. “That’s a pretty normal response, Data. That’s why they call it a guilty pleasure. It’s part of the fun.”

“As I am capable of feeling neither guilt nor pleasure, I will ‘take your word for it.’” He finished reading the book and set it aside.

“What did you think of it?”

“I think… I may never be capable of ‘romance’ as this book depicts it. The male protagonist frequently professes his love for his counterpart, and I am unable to do that as I am not capable of lo-“

He was silenced by the press of Tasha’s fingertips against his lips.

“I’m not going to let you finish that sentence,” she said, pulling her hand away.

“Yet, the fact remains,” he said.

“For now. But I have a feeling that there may come a time when you are capable, and when that time comes, you may also feel regret for all the times you said you couldn’t.”

“… I will defer to your emotional expertise.”

“Good,” she said with a smile. “Anyway, all the I-love-yous aren’t that important. They kind of pulled me out of the fantasy. What about the rest of how he acted?”

“He was conscientious, gentle, protective without restraining her free will,” Data said. “He asked permission and listened to her response.”

“Yes. Could you see yourself wanting to be like that?”

“It is far more in line with appropriate behavioral norms, and as such, it is behavior I would wish to emulate.”

“What if I said you already are like that? That there is no need to emulate it?”

“Because of what you describe as my ‘nature’?”

“Yes.”

“I believe that would be considered ‘a very big compliment.’”

“Data,” Tasha said, biting her lip as she slid closer. “May I touch you?”

“I have observed that humans are a highly tactile species, and frequently utilize touch to strengthen relationships. Please proceed.”

Tasha pressed against his side, her head resting on his shoulder, an arm curled around his back. Her fingertips strayed to the nape of his neck, playing idly with the ends of his hair while her other hand came to rest on his thigh. Rather high up on his thigh, he noted.

“Tasha,” Data queried softly. “Why did the expressions of affection in the novel ‘pull you out of the fantasy’?”

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes.

“Because the rest of the time, I was imagining you.”

“And was that satisfactory, even without the expressions?”

“More than satisfactory, Data. Much more.”

Her hand slid further up his leg, and his modesty subroutine disengaged properly as his sexuality programming took over.

“Tasha… are we about to have another sexual encounter?”

“If you say yes.”

Data drew in a sharp breath as a subroutine governing physical arousal sped his sensory processing and, by necessity, increased both his coolant circulation and the air exchange through which it vented excess heat.

“Yes.”

\---

Their clothes were shed in short order, and with something not dissimilar to reverence, Data explored Tasha’s body at leisure, taking far more time than had been afforded to them on the previous occasion, all to a chorus of _may I_ and _yes._ He kissed her deeply, far more than once; shared her breath and closed his eyes in awe as she moaned into his mouth. With his lips, he mapped the line of her neck to the hollow of her throat, traced over the elegant grace of her collarbones, and caressed the soft mounds of her breasts, suckling the stiffened peaks of her nipples as she clutched him to her and cried out beneath him.

She reached for him, wrapping his erect phallus in her hand and stroking him, and he was about to remind her that he did not require such additional stimulation when, to his surprise, he found that it was indeed doing something. A new subroutine had activated, sending electrical impulses of physical sensation through his body in a way he could not define as _pleasure_ but also did not wish to stop, and he found it had also generated something akin to a feedback loop; the more she stimulated him, the more he felt compelled to please her. He kissed her again as the sensation built, and then slid down the length of her body with a whispered _please, let me_ as he settled between her thighs.

His tongue flicked and circled against her clitoris, drawing moan after moan from her, cascading into a broken whine when he sucked on the tender filament of her being. When he lapped into her core, her legs draped over his shoulders and one hand buried in his hair, the other clutching her pillow, she arched and bucked and cried out her pleasure. This, too, contributed to the feedback loop newly established by his programming; it seemed every pleasurable action contributed to his urgency to give her _more_ , without regard to which of them the action was performed upon in the first place.

Such it was that when she reached her peak, sustained there by his continued efforts before she crashed back down into an ungainly heap of sweat and satisfaction, he asked softly, “I think I need to penetrate you, may I?”

Tasha, knowing that she was free to say no and that he would simply accept it and disengage his sexuality program if she did, felt free instead to say yes, and as he moved up, again teasing her breasts with his mouth, his cock jutting thick and hard from his pelvis as he settled above her, she realized that for the first time in her life she was about to allow a man to be on top of her, and that for the first time in her life, she was fine with it.

“Please, Data,” she said, reaching down to guide him into her, and as he slid into her fully, he wrapped her in his arms and looked into her eyes with an expression of wonder. He rocked into her, slowly at first and mindful of the fact that she had just come, stirring her arousal anew with every smooth stroke. She didn’t think she had ever been so wet in her life, and she knew sex had never felt so purely good as this.

“I understand now… what the first book meant by ‘molten,’” Data murmured in her ear as he moved. “You are quite warm and… well lubricated…” he shivered, a result of a subroutine far beyond his conscious control, “… and were I able to feel pleasure, I believe that at this moment I would indeed be prone to hyperbole as a means of appropriately… conveying the _magnitude_ of the sentiment.”

“It feels good for me too, Data,” she gasped. “You’re so _good,_ and it’s… it’s _everything._ ”

Data’s hips bucked harder then, driving him deep as she rose up to meet him, breathy cries of ecstasy rising from her throat as Data chased her climax with every powerful thrust. Before long, she was mounting the peak again, arms clinging to his shoulders as her inner walls clutched tightly around his length. As she cried out a final time, convulsing around him and continuing to meet his thrusts as she rode out her orgasm, a strange sensation overcame Data as well. A single, short, wordless cry fell from his mouth, his neural processors overloaded, and his entire consciousness whited out for nearly a full second. He found that he was clinging to her and panting, shivering with every aftershock of the diminishing overload still racing through his positronic net. After a moment, he slipped from her, flaccid, his sexuality programming having disengaged on its own, and he rolled to her side to avoid her bearing the brunt of his full weight.

“What happened, Data?” she asked breathlessly, her eyes wide and startled.

“I do not know,” he said slowly. “It was as though my neural net overloaded, and my systems were briefly in danger of shutdown, yet my self-diagnostic program indicates there was never any true danger and I was functioning within the standard operating parameters of a subroutine of which I was not aware until this encounter.”

“Data, I… I think you had an orgasm!” She slipped a hand experimentally between her thighs and came back with a thin sheen of fluid covering her fingers, mostly clear but with a faint shimmer of metallic flecks throughout. “What, uh, what is this, exactly?”

“It lubricates my biofunctions,” he replied, perplexed. “It should have no ill effect on human physiology, but if you find it unpleasant, you have my apologies. This has never happened to me before.”

“It’s fine, Data,” she said, rolling over to kiss him softly. She yawned, then, and pillowed her head on his shoulder. “I think I’m going to fall asleep.”

“I will require that you free my arm, if I am to leave,” he told her.

“No, Data,” she said. “Please stay.”

Data did not require sleep, but he could run through various computational processes just as easily laying down as he could standing or sitting. He was just selecting those he wished to engage when he heard Tasha breathe out softly,

“I love you.”

Her breathing slipped into a cadence which told him she had fallen asleep. He let his gaze wander over her relaxed features for a moment, pondered for 0.027 seconds the irrationality of speaking aloud when no one could hear him, and then said, quietly so she would not wake,

“I am incapable of the emotion of love, and yet… I believe that if I were ever to become able to feel such an emotion, I would love you very much.”

He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, and felt nothing, and yet knew it was right, having observed the action between other humans. He lay back, Tasha cradled safely against him, and as he began a stream of cognitive processes to make use of the night, he considered her face again. He found there what he believed to be an objective aesthetic merit to the way this set of features, and none other, combined to form what his memory processors, now and for as long as he would function, identified as Natasha Yar.


End file.
